183 comments:

I'm thinking about the economy. The gold liquid is the trickledown from Wall Street financier penthouses and DC Insider mansions - hitting my face and head as I walk dazed and scared at how fast all my long term financial plans have unravelled.

Today, my former business just laid off 700, nearly half it's workforce. My phone has been busy today with former co-workers busily starting their desperate "networking" plans for job leads.

I just came in from visiting my neighbors and their newborn son who came home yesterday. Health, happiness, and love abound. Now eating an apple, viewing from my back porch the setting sun on the meadow full of goldenrod just passing its peak bloom, watching dog chase a groundhog back into it's burrow, thinking: What a wa wa wonderful world.

I've been thinking a lot about the need for balance the past few days.

Balance as in my stocks are at the bottom of the ocean, but my wife and I both survived emergency heart surgery at the end of '07. Both surgeries were to repair birth defects that went undiagnosed until we were 58 and 59.

We had surgery within 60 days of each other and came damn close to orphaning our kids. We're both in tip-top condition now. My stock portfolio, such as it is, isn't as important as spending another summer with my wife.

Balance as in having a life beyond the current political matters.

Balance as in keeping away from toxically angry people and keeping strong the friendships with dear friends; some whose friendship dates back to grade school.

Balance as in exercising smartly and letting go of the late middle age desire to be Ahnold.

Balance as in not being disturbed because my 59 year old body houses a 35 year old mind wondering what the hell happened.

Balance as in accepting that my 30 and 28 year old children are doing okay without my input, and are as busy and self-absorbed now as I was at their ages. I changed; they will in due time.

Balance as in knowing that the surest way to hear God laugh is to believe that I planned my life.

Also MallarméSilence, sole luxury after rhymes, an orchestra only marking with its gold, its brushes with thought and dusk, the detail of its signification on a par with a stilled ode and which it is up to the poet, roused by a dare, to translate!

I am a motorcycle rider who enjoys taking off a few weeks now and then and logging 3,000-5,000 miles. I began wearing foam earplugs under my helmet this summer on the advice of my physician, in order to reduce the noise that leads to hearing loss.

I have come to enjoy the quiet that comes from wearing earplugs. Weird, eh? Wearing them makes the ride very quiet, with only a little engine, road and wind noise intruding.

Over a few months I began keeping them in after each ride ended,and wearing them while mowing the lawn as well.

After that, I began wearing them when I went shopping in a mall. And quite a few other places as well, but never when out in the wilderness.

The strange part is, I've come to enjoy the quiet. I can hear my own footfalls; my own breathing. I can pretend to not hear people who want my attention.

My wife is in on it, and now she sometimes wears her earplugs when we are out shopping. It feels like we are aliens from another planet, quietly making our way unnoticed among earthlings.

A nice young woman at a Barnes and Noble noticed and asked whether we needed a signer. I said "no, we learned to read lips a long time ago. At Galluadet."

When we got to our car, laughing, my wife said "read my lips: I'm an alien from the planet of the horny women".

I think that "perfect storms" are a combination of happenstance, ignorance, and connivance. That's why the timing of Paulson's chicken little sprint to the White House has always seemed suspicious. It's almost like Bush or Treasury was gunning for McCain.

John: One Hundred Years of Solitude! (From your profile)I just read that this year, and I don't know if I would call it one of my favorites, but it was fascinating.

And I was dying to discuss that book with someone when I finished it. But everyone I know had read it too long ago. I remember finishing the book with my mouth open, literally. The ending was unforgettable.

That picture reminds me of the rumpled silk sheets this one chick I used to date had. I thought it was kind of gaudy but she liked it and gave good...well you know so I kept my opinions to myself.

No gold drinks for me ma'am. I only drink stouts or porters. None of that sissy lager shit for me. Right now I am enjoing a Stone Imperial Russian Stout and it's as black as the Congo. Anything else is for sissies.

Its been a long time. I did like the feeling of time like a "wheel except for the inevitable wearing down of the hub", which is a good definition of entropy. The United Fruit Company part is straight out of the leftist latin american bible.

That's about all. I will pick it up again soon. Thanks.

I just finished two WWII histories by Max Hastings (Retribution and Armegeddon). I highly recommend both.

I never took to drinking, it's been nearly 40 years since I had more than one, but at times, a bit of good sake hits the spot. To each their own.

I had a birth defect in my heart that was repaired at age 55. I was feeling smug because I had just turned 55 and outlived my brother who died at 54 of a heart attack. My smugness was shortlived, and I am at times, a bit more humble now.

I wear earmuffs when I work and mow the lawn and run a chainsaw. Quiet amidst the noise is an interesting thing. It is not a bad place to live. I am going deaf, anyway, so I might as well get used to it. Quiet is good.

So, quiet sobriety here, peace in the noise, and lots of hard work despite being near death not long ago. Life goes on...

Thanks for the recommendations, John. Good point about the fruit company, I definitely noticed that.

I'm into learning more history, but I'm more of a historical fiction fan. I just finished The Historian, which was a lot of fun. Blending a vampire story with plenty of real historical background and jaunts through Istanbul, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.

Have your read An Army at Dawn and Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson? Stunning. His Long Gray Line, covering the Vietname era, is a heartrending book. I've read the three over the last few years and they've changed the way I look at our current wars.

Darcy, I can't stand Garcia Marquez for obvious reasons, but I recommend a book by another champagne communist, Alejo Carpentier. The Kingdom of This World, ,Explosion in a Cathedral and Reasons of State are pretty good. He is one of those who preceeded Garcia Marquez in the style of "lo real maravilloso", or magic realism. As much of a Cuban champagne communist as he was, I still enjoyed those books.

No, one war at a time. I got sucked into the Civil War (who didnt?) after reading the HISTORICAL FICTION "Killer Angels". It took several years of reading nothing but CW books, and 2 summers visiting battlefields, to the dismay of my family. Ever hike up the south side of Little Round Top on a very hot July afternoon, pulling two young children and explaining to them how easy it was for us compared to the confederate soldiers who had to do the same thing, just as hot, hauling a heavy rifle, wearing wool, probably barefoot and hungry, and having someone shooting at them from the top?

My fiance was down visiting for a long weekend. We saw The Swell Season in concert down in San Diego last Friday. Wonderful.

Then I lost my stillness a couple days ago, the day she left. I started getting worried about money, about getting on top of my philosophy in order to sound like I belong, about all the things I need to do, papers to write, classes to teach.

I forgot the beauty, when the beauty is all around me. I sat today and watched. A gentle breeze, the birds happy in the cooler weather, the oak leaves turning from dark green to gold.

And I felt the stillness again.

Beauty has to be ingested, absorbed, sat with. The frenzied worries were washed away. Peace whispered into my soul, and now, I'm still once more. Able to embrace this life with joy and fun, even with the challenges.

john, Carpentier spent most of his life living off his family, in France, Venezuela, Haiti and other Latin American and European countries. He spent so much time in Paris (also as Castro's ambassador to France from the '60s until he died in 1980) that he had a French accent in Spanish. So, champagne communist fits him perfectly.

An Army at Dawn and Day of Battle are WWII histories, which wasn't clear from my comment above. An Army at Dawn is about the North African campaign while Day of Battle covers the Italian campaign through the fall of Rome. Atkinson is currently working on a third volume that will cover the invasion of France.

That reminds me, I made pickles yesterday and I'm eager to taste them.

* tastes pickles *

Mmmmm, pickles.

And that wiped out the previous thing I was thinking when I read, "Tell me what you're thinking," which was, I should have taken more time reviving that Antioch sourdough and I should have divided the batch into three loaves instead of two. That would have resulted in better, um, results.

Oh well, live and learn, and they're not altogether bad. They're just not all that they should be.

At Sam's Club I can get 25LBS of flour for a little over $9.00 which is like getting art supplies for nearly free and that fills me with joy and causes me to experiment with abandon and to make gigantic messes that must be cleaned up before embarking upon another experiment. Which is a rule that gets broken constantly until overlapping messes become untenable. That's what I was thinking.

The other thing I was thinking at the moment I read "Tell me what you're thinking," was, had I bought another camera today it would have been the Canon D40. I'm very susceptible to the statistics and the reviews on Flickr.com.

Now, these fleeting thoughts might seem to indicate the workings of a disordered mind but that is not the case, but rather the nature of thoughts themselves, as one thought flows into another.

I guess I want to talk about ACORN and the crappy political season which has really been going on for an eternity but I am drawn to love. I have been married for 22+ years and with her almost 27. She knows me better than anyone ever will, has done more for me than anyone ever has and loves me more than anyone ever will.

We have done "richer amd poorer, in sickness and in health" and the raising of three incredible girls.

So I am blessed, unanafraid and full of faith, It is well with my soul.

I'm thinking about 5 USC 1502. I'm thinking about what it means to use one's "official authority or influence" to "interfer[e] with or affect[] the result of an election." And I'm thinking about 5 CFR 733.111. Whatever happened to it, I wonder? It just seems to disappear with nery a bang or a whimper.

--- We discovered a new (to us) game: "What starts with the letter [letter] and [hint]?" (e.g., "What starts with the letter C and meows?") Of course, it would have been fun enough if she enjoyed being on the guessing side, and she did. But she also started making up questions herself, too, and doing a great job of it.

She actually made me smile more than twice today but those were the biggies.

I need to smile these days. This economic mess is kicking my ass. I've figured out that our cash positions and stable cash flows are sufficient for the next couple years, at the very least. So I really shouldn't worry. But it is hard to see that side of it when the graphs keep drawing down and to the right.

Physical gold. Physical.

That's all well and good, OG, but as your link states, the long term trend favors the Dow by about 1.25%. Now if you were prescient enough to buy at the lows and sell at the highs, good for you!

Drinking Bushmill's 1608 and thinking that McCain should start naming a few cabinet members, describe their functions as it relates to the current issues, put them on stage with him and Palin..and stop walking around like people are going to come to their senses...they're not.

Listen to them...read them...talk to them...they are NOT coming to their senses.

john said... "Simon, ... I worry about how you will hold up the next 3 weeks (and afterward also)."

Not whell, Brian, not whell... [/stewie]

I'm not holding up well. I'm already thinking in terms of (for want of a less historically-freighted phrase) "massive resistance." We must either beat him or actively seek out ways to shipwreck his administration from day one.

Maybe you should consider whether always thinking what you always think is a healthy thing--for you and your life, to be sure, but also for the sake of your "thinks" and that which thinks them.

Not to mention the goals in which you profess to believe, but to which you aren't committed enough to be willing to dissect them coolly. Instead, you appear to prefer to be willing to melt the best of them in the heat of your passion--nay, no: emotion.

Simon, you've gotten emotional about all this, and it's emotion--not logic, not stubborn facts, not even intuition, and certainly not experience--that is now governing your "thinks." Call me a troll, call me whatever: but stop for a minute, a moment, a flash in time, and consider (that thing which is a cross between thought, judgment and imagination). Consider!

This has nothing to do with how you--or anyone else--is voting this political season, by the way. I'd assume that goes without saying, except that I've been "larned" to know better.

I'm already thinking in terms of (for want of a less historically-freighted phrase) "massive resistance." We must either beat him or actively seek out ways to shipwreck his administration from day one.

I'm sure Team Obama trembles at the prospect of your plans for fomenting "massive resistance" against him. The comments on internet blogs will be stinging, I tell you!

Well, sh**. Just checking to see that my comment posted, I see the just previous comment (from Simon!), which clearly indicates that I missed a bunch of posts in process--and then cross-posted, to boot.

Well, sh**. Still, I stand by what I just wrote, 1000 percent, all chips falling everywhere aside.

I'm thinking about the pleasant evening I just spent watching Laurie Anderson screen one of her short films and give an interesting talk at the Menil Collection in Houston. It was a lovely film piece, and Anderson is an engaging speaker. A great way to get one's mind off the financial crisis and political machinations.

If you confuse party with country, you're a fool. If you put party above country, you're a traitor.

Tell me how that's not so. Then tell me how that doesn't cut both ways.

More important, reconcile those things for yourself, to yourself, if it applies. (Of course, that assumes you have that capability ... as opposed to your preferring "baffled" to doing the work that imagination and rigorous consideration requires.)

Reader, if I see someone about to jump off a cliff, I would hope that my first instinct isn't to celebrate their democratic choice, but to either talk them down or - if possible - bodily restrain them until cooler heads prevail.

There are of course limits that any conservative must acknowledge in pursuit of; for example, using the courts to torpedo liberal programs, insofar as conservative judicial activism is as unconscionable as liberal judicial activism. Nevertheless, much of what Obama proposes may well be vulnerable to attack broad or narrow, and it is important to keep in mind just how much damage he will be in a position to do. It requires no flight of fantasy to think he will be the most destructive President since FDR - one must only take him and Congressional Democrats at their word.

The bottom line is that when darkness is coming, we've got to break out whatever flashlights and torches are available.

A year ago yesterday the stock market reached it's Everest, yesterday it saw its biggest one day drop.

Yesterday my Nexflix happened to have Eraserhead (again, I go back to the good stuff, all the time) and tonight I watched Control - A biopic of Ian Curtis of Joy Division (the guys responsible for altering 'alternative' music)

Holy shit if the true life story of Ian, from the late seventies and the total fiction from David Lynch in the early seventies have striking similarities. Maybe it's my imagination - I did see an omage to Eraserhead in 2001.

It's a little after 1am. The house is quiet, except for the somewhat snoring dog on the couch. My wife and baby daughters are snuggled in their beds (we just got the 7-month old out of our room and into hers finally).It is my favorite few minutes of the day, when I can watch them sleeping, not worrying about tomorrow, just enjoying the peaceful 'now'.

I watched "Control" a few weeks ago, coincidently the same week that David Foster Wallace hung himself.

I thought the band "live" scenes were very well done. My wife, no big fan of Joy Division, thought the scenes were better than recorded Joy Division because they lacked the heavy on synthesizer aspect.

The reason I appear allied with righties is that righties — as they say — look for converts and lefties look for heretics. I've gotten well-linked from the right, from bloggers who leave me alone when they disagree and give me positive reinforcement when they agree. This linkage makes me look like a traitor to my class (university professors) and I get punished from the left on a regular basis, with almost no positive reinforcement. For example, when I said I was voting for Obama in the Wisconsin primary, all I got from the left was the accusation that I was setting up a dramatic turn to McCain later in the year. It's just not like that for me. I'm not political the way those other bloggers are political.

I think this is interesting in light of Ann's recent confession that she will probably vote for Obama.

john - it's not ODS. It's a realistic assessment that the Dems/MSM are conducting a coup de tat on America. Obama is just their figurehead for the moment. I don't despise him any more then an average Democrat. What I despise is the absolute subversion of our republic.

Not accusing, just thinking about that election, with the Florida clusterf**k, the "selected not elected" chants, the hatred and bile, eating at those pathetic people for 8 years. Wer'e better than that - wer'e better than them.

john - what's eating at me is that 100% certainty that Obama and the Dem Congress are going to do things in 2009 that will cause the economy to crater and everyone I know will lose their jobs. That's what I'm afraid of. If Obama moderates and doesn't f*ck everything up, kudos. But I don't see it happening - he's too much of a left-wing radical. WHy else would Ayers launch his political career unless he saw something in Barack?

Beth, we are on the cusp of the final stage of a revolution that began in 1930.

FDR tried his brand of socialism, and got us about 1/3rd the way there. LBJ took us another third. After that came the slow kudzu of government intervention and control over more and more aspects of our lives that used to be personal.

It's 1929 again. We are close to electing the most liberal Democrat in the Congress, who was raised by and vetted by and trained by and churched by and befriended by leftists (and leftist revolutionaries). It is without a doubt that he will govern as a leftist, and finish the job.

Not a coup? This is what Brave New World was about, and where we are headed (instead of 1984).

Not a coup? Then why do the folks who escaped leftist totalitarianism recognize the pattern common to leftism here?

Let's see in 10 years. My bet is we'll have a Constitution that means nothing except what Dear Leader says it does that day.

Batshit crazy?Look at England, with its nursery rhyme police and forbidden self defense and 50% tax rates and declining economy (even before the crash). Lefties love that shit.

But it ain't America.That ain't our Constitution.So yes, a coup. A revolution.

I don't think that example helps you much, Daddy: Clinton and Ferraro have both endorsed His Hopeyness, have they not? I'm not suggesting we go that far.

If worse comes to worst, one good loyal-opposition thing we might to is continue supporting Obama's middle-class tax cut even after he **suddenly** decides we can't afford it. (I'm betting this happens Nov. 5.)

Batshit crazy. Republicans. I have to chuckle at that after 8 years of Dems running down our country and it's President to the rest of the world.

But yeah, we won't be doing that. I won't, anyway.

I do think, if the election is close, that voter fraud will certainly help the Dems. But if it's not close, well...not worth wasting our breath. We just didn't have the right message, and there are too many negatives for any Republican running this year.

I'm not giving up, though. I'm worried, of course. But I have to have faith that the American people won't stand for what Reid/Pelosi/Obama really want.

""The gentleman in question, Bill Ayers, is a college professor, teaches education at the University of Illinois," he said. "That's how I met him -- working on a school reform project that was funded by an ambassador and very close friend of Ronald Reagan's" along with "a bunch of conservative businessmen and civic leaders."

"Ultimately, I ended up learning about the fact that he had engaged in this reprehensible act 40 years ago, but I was eight years old at the time and I assumed that he had been rehabilitated," Obama said."

Take away:

1) Obama thinks Ayers is a "gentleman" and "professor" who was vetted by "an ambassador." 2) He only did one thing that was "reprehensible," not 20+ bombings, a jail break, and who knows what else.3) Blame Reagan and blame conservatives and/or I'm just as stupid as they are.4) He paid no attention to anything in the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps because he wasn't living in the US or was high and/or he's lying and always knew who Ayers was and/or didn't care or thought he was a cool white guy who dug black people.5) He thinks we're stupid enough to still buy the "8 years old line." 6) He'd probably hire Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten to babsit for him.7) He's not nearly as smooth a liar as Clinton was.8) Obama "assumed" he was rehabilitiated. When you assume something you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me."

I don't think that example helps you much, Daddy: Clinton and Ferraro have both endorsed His Hopeyness, have they not? I'm not suggesting we go that far.

You're missing the point. They endorse him now because he's the Democratic nominee. You either follow the party line or join a new party, that's politics. But during the primaries, his followers didn't hesitate to play the race card when even one of their own dared to question him. If they're willing to do that to fellow liberals, imagine when the real opposition begins. Hell conservatives are being called racists now because we dare question his associations with a WHITE MAN.

Paul, it's strange to sit here amidst the global slip into the second worldwide Depression in 80 years knowing that we are electing a socialist into the highset office, with no meaningful opposition in the Congress.

Much like FDR in the 1930s, this will be viewed by the Democrats as a mandate to broaden US government control over more and moreof the finance and health sectors. They are promising this even now.

Apparently the majority of US citizens want socialism. I cannot help that; this has happened the world over. Why not us?

But to pretend this is not a massive change in government, socialism by an 80 year installment plan, is either mendacious or ignorant.

Get a grip?I am merely describing reality.

I'm not trying to warn people because I have come to realize that few people think like I do anymore. They have come to desire the government like a mother, and look to it for sustenance. They cannot be warned about something they believe they want and need. It's a fait accompli.

But I don't have to pretend this isn't the demise of the American experiment, because truly it is now far from the intent of the framers.

Beth, I'm not suggesting that we engage in the sort of thing that the left has spent the last seven or so years doing - conspiracy theories, fabrication, running around saying that the President is evil. I'm not talking The Hunting of the President. I am certainly not suggesting falling back on conservative judicial activism - I'm not proposing a sort of Lochner for the 21st century or our own Massachusetts v. EPA. (It's a harder question whether precedents already on the books created for liberal ends should be redeployed in defense of the Constitution.) What I'm saying is that whatever tools are available - if he sneezes in a way inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act we should be there with a hankie - need to be used. I understand that he is sincerely doing what he thinks is best (and that the national is collectively bawling "mommy"). The problem is that he's wrong, and to the extent his proposals are vulnerable to Constitutional challenge, as were FDR's, they should be sent to the same fate. Y'all will remember the Constitution - it's that stuff that comes before the bill of rights. ;)

But how do you get from there to saying we should undermine our own country's government?

I'm not advocating that whatsoever, I was only pointing out the futility of being a loyal opposition.

Coup may be using some flowery language but when I look at Marion County Indiana having 105% of its voting population registered it certainly raises a lot of concern. Hell, the county I orginally hailed from, Lake Co. Indiana has stopped processing registration cards submitted by ACORN because the first 2100 of 5000 cards were fake.

But I am sure our resident lefties will simply chalk this up to a simple oversight, nothing to see here, pay no attention to the smell of bullshit behind the curtain.

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

has a grandiose sense of self-importanceis preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal lovebelieves that he or she is "special" and uniquerequires excessive admirationhas a sense of entitlementis interpersonally exploitativelacks empathyis often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or hershows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

In case it isn't clear enough implicitly, I want to explicitly associate myself with much of what Pogo's said above, with the reservation that I don't agree with terming this a coup. While it may be within the literal meaning of the term, so terming the result of an election risks being seen as hysterical because it lies far from the connotations in ordinary usage of the word so far as it's applied to government.

HoosierDaddy - but there's no election fraud in Indiana! The Democrats have told us as much! They insisted on it, in fact, when they litigated to strike down the voter ID act. Are you suggesting they were wrong - that there might be voter fraud in the Hoosier State?! Surely you jest!

Well, this thread degenerated, didn't it? I don't suppose we'll get back on track now, but for the hell of it -

I'm at work having my tea break, so if I look at the right angle before I add milk and sugar, my cup of Yorkshire Gold looks. . .well, golden. And then I have a bottle of Bushmills at home waiting to be cracked tonight. It's the start of a three-day weekend, and I intend to flop on the couch with my little American Eskimo dog and christen my new flat screen TV in style - Taylor/Burton "Cleopatra," "My Fair Lady" and "Zodiac" back-to-back-to-back (which reminds me, elcubanito, I still owe you a DVD - just haven't had it burned yet).

I do think about the election, but have come to the belated realisation that I'm too wound up in politics. It's affecting my mental health and I need to detox. If Obama wins, I won't be engaging in such juvenilia as "he's not MY President!" but I will just shrug my shoulders, hedge my bets, keep my head down and say "you wanted him" whenever anybody to my left complains about POTSUBHO.

Jim, there really wasn't much substantive difference. Doesn't my 8:08 AM comment amount to "we need to shipwreck this administration"? I had thought it was implicit that civilized people would carry out what I said last night within bounds of civility ignored by the left during the Bush administration. I would have thought it obvious that a mandate to preserve the Constitution from the assault it is about to endure from the left can't include making up useful but imaginary tools from it ourselves, although after the nuclear option I must concede that not all conservatives would share that view.

My grandfather was a self-employed patent attorney during the Great Depression. Always there were garage inventors and unemployed engineers who came to him for help with their ideas. Even though he turned away the inventions that had no hope of success he never lacked for work.

Seems like were stuck here. I would just like to mention, IMO, the biggest federal takeover of this country's economy has already taken place, under a republican administration and supported by both candidates. I don't know why you are so worried about a probable Obama presidency. The actions of the current administration, and congress, should be scary enough for all of us, right now.

Well said, Christopher. I was looking forward to engaging in some non-political discourse in this thread this morning, but I guess this close to an election, that is too much to hope for on the internets.

Me, I'm still following the election, but all has taken a back seat to the birth of sister's first child earlier this week - an amazing baby girl. She's just about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen...so tiny and perfect. It's hard to feel too down about anything when looking at her.

Seems like were stuck here. I would just like to mention, IMO, the biggest federal takeover of this country's economy has already taken place, under a republican administration and supported by both candidates. I don't know why you are so worried about a probable Obama presidency. The actions of the current administration, and congress, should be scary enough for all of us, right now.

8:49 AM

John, and they are, no one will argue with that. However, this administration is almost the past. The future is now what counts, and things can always get much worse.

John,As dismayed as I am by what has been done by the Bush administration -- and this is only the latest in a long record of big government liberalism from this administration, by the way -- I think you're overlooking an important distinction. There is a difference between a willingness to enact a given policy as a temporary, emergency response to a crisis, on the one hand, and on the other, seeing that policy as a normative model for good governance as a matter of course. I don't think that Henry Paulson believes that the government should own your mortgage, I think he's willing to accept the government temporarily owning some mortgages if the alternative is a cataclysmic crash of the economy. That's a far cry from believing that government owning everyone's mortgage is a good policy to be implemented and maintained in ordinary times!

Another example (this is an imperfect example, I admit, but it's early and I'm uncaffeinated): on 9/11 Vice President Cheney gave the order to shoot down airliners inbound to D.C. There is no doubt that those orders would have been followed in those circumstances - but no one would suggest that if the Vice President of the United States had ordered the military to shoot down an airliner, on his own authority, on September 10th, 2001, that would have been a legal order. That's not a good example, as I said, but hopefully it suffices to illustrate the point. Or consider that in a time of war, we might accept more wiretapping than in time of peace, but an administration that was willing to do that in an emergency is far better than one that believes that all phones should be wiretapped at all times, you know, in case someone says something intolerant and needs reeducation or whatnot.

It's one thing for the government to take over parts of the economy during an emergency, another to make it permanent. This country was really-and-truly socialist during both world wars, but it got better.

Assuming that you are right (i.e. that your posts last night and this morning were substantively the same), I would say that style and tone matter. When I read "we need to shipwreck this administration", I read it as "let's make sure this guy fails." That is far different that what you said this morning particularly since you focused this morning on challenging constitutional overreach.

I wish I had had time to make some Turkish coffee. It always invokes this vague sense of ease, like the first still moments after a soft fall rain, or the smile of your own small child, or a letter from a friend about nothing at all.

Madison Man is right. The Republican party is what it is right now, not what it used to be 20, or even 10, years ago. I used to identify Republican, and now I simply can't and have to face the fact that I probably never will be able to again.

There really should be something called the Sensible Party that takes the centrist ideas from both parties and leaves the R/D parties to the lunatic fringes and the dustbin of history.

Well, I heard Michael Savage is starting his own political party, though somehow I imagine that's not exactly what you had in mind.

Paul Zrimsek said..."It's one thing for the government to take over parts of the economy during an emergency, another to make it permanent. This country was really-and-truly socialist during both world wars, but it got better."

I think that it might overstate it to say we were really-and-truly. Stipulating that much, however, I agree: let's remember that Hayek didn't say in TRTS that the kind of command economy that had developed for the purpose of winning the war was maladaptive, he warned against continuing such forms in peacetime.

That is, Jim, I think that what he wants to do is deeply contrary to our Constitution and traditions, and I want to make sure that the damage he does is as limited as possible - I want to defend those things with the tools that are available. Looking from that perspective, there's no difference between seeking to ensure he fails and focusing on stopping overreach.

Pogo said..."I wish I had had time to make some Turkish coffee."

I think we're all going to more need Irish Coffee over the next few years. ;)

Another old friend of mine (that's 2!!) used to advise our students to eschew obfuscation, which always brought blank stares.

But my favorite of his teaching moments was when he would have me ask a medical student How can you tell a rectal thermometer from an oral thermometer?They always got this frightened look, knowing not the answer, and he would reply confidently The rectal thermometer tastes like shit.

Aunt Lorelei, I second the congratulations. Despite the morning gloom, I'll send up a prayer that your niece grows up in an America still true to the Founders' ideals.

And here's a little trivia (until Trooper York shows up and blows me out of the water) - Anita Loos, the creator of Lorelei Lee, started out in 1912 by sending a story (to become the Mary Pickford short "The New York Hat") to the Biograph film studio in New York, thinking - correctly - that she could write better stories than she'd seen on the screen so far. But, signing her name "A. Loos," the studio had no idea how old she was (barely 20), or, in fact, that she was a girl at all. When D.W. Griffith finally met her, he actually looked past Loos to her mother, thinking the stern matron to be "A. Loos." And the rest is history.

(and BTW, as I was once pedantically corrected - her name was pronounced "Anita LOHSE," not "LOOZE").

I've been an uncle since I was too young to even realize it (I was 2 months and 20 days old to be exact). However, my biggest joy was to help raise my youngest niece who was born when I was 17. It's a great experience!

I'm really excited about the arrival of my niece and I'm looking forward to being a part of her life. It's funny because I've never been much for babies or kids, but she's just so neat. When I'm around her, I just sit and stare in wonder, marveling at the miracle of life which I may have just fully understood for the first time. I get why they call babies "bundles of joy" now.

All of that sounds hopelessly trite, I'm sure, but it's true nonetheless. (Trite and true?) It even made me want a baby of my own someday, in something more than an abstract way.

There's a lake within walking-distance to my house. I take the children there to play. On a perfect fall or spring day the afternoon sun turns the water to gold crossed with waves of electrum. It's as mesmerizing as the AA photo.

Interesting fact about Bush's speech - not stuttering, ahs, ums. This is the best he's spoken since 9/11. Amazing what a REAL crisis does to focus the mind. The last thing the American people needed right now was to hear a President who couldn't speak clearly. Just goes to show those claims of "pre-senile dementia" were all bullshit.

Those of you who have active 401Ks or SEP IRAs are in effect dollar-cost averaging into this market. You are taking advantage of what is probably going to turn out to be the buying opportunity of 1.5 lifetimes. You may well be doing the equivalent of buying in 1932, and it may well make you rich. Now, depending on how conservative your fund picks have been, how conservative your regular financial behavior has been, and how long your time horizon, that may not be a comforting thought. But it should be. As one citizen to another, the regular infusions you are putting into the market are making you de facto contrarians and even (if I may) patriots; you are damping the market slump triggered by hysterics awash in self-destructive selfishness. Strength to your arms.

DBQ, leave the wrists unslit and (even more so) the bottle corked. If you exsanguinate, those of us who like your work will be wondering who will post for you? Get drunk, and you're just cherishing the Inner Dolt. Assuming you have fall where you are, go mountain-biking on a single-track through overarching halls of red-gold. Or set up on stand for elk over a pond surrounded by aureate cottonwoods.

Fred4Pres said..."That is a heck of a great photograph Professor A. What was the technique to do it (if you don't mind sharing your secrets)."

I do surprisingly little. Water is really interesting looking. It's mostly a matter of seeing what is actually there or simply trusting that you will see things that are there when you go through the photographs.

My main "secrets" are:

1. I've found pools of water in several places that I know have good reflections and movement. Plants next to the water tend to produce interesting reflections.

2. I know when the light is good.

3. I try to frame good shots and I take a lot of shots. Scanning through them, I pick the best ones and duplicate them, then crop details that caught good shapes and colors.

4. Working only with iPhoto, I sometimes hit "enhance," but usually only heighten the contrast, lower the exposure, sharpen, and move the hue and temperature sliders until something excites me.

Simon, amazing what a good night's sleep can do. Your "shipwreck" comment looked much worse alongside the "coup" idiocy and claims that the Castros are on the shore, ready to turn us all Communist. I appreciated your cooler comments this morning.

But it's still incredibly disturbing to hear so much rhetoric asserting that the American people can't be trusted to govern themselves through their vote.